After reading many beautiful and heartwarming articles written by mothers and daughters about Mother's Day, I wanted to share some of the photos and stories of animals I've seen around the world taking care of their young. Some of you know that I've been involved in animal rescue for many years and have a soft spot in my heart for all animals. I am always amazed at how protective and caring animals are of their offspring.

I really wanted to write a post in honor of all mothers and especially those that are often overlooked on Mother's Day each year. If you have pets you are a mother they could not survive without you! I wrote a similar post about animal mothers and their offspring for mothers day a couple of years ago. One of my readers was very grateful that I had posted it. Sadly not humans have a mother at all or one that they are close to.

My husband and I have also taken in several stray pregnant cats. We found homes for all of the babies and mothers including the seven orange ones in the second photo down. We actually kept the mothers - Princess (the black cat) and Peaches (orange cat) for ourselves.

The monkeys that I saw at the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali we're so fun to watch. The babies were so cute and well taken care of by their mothers. I thought this mother was showing tremendous patience with her little one.Here is a mother monkey feeding her baby what appears to be some coconut:I saw many elephant mothers with their babies in the Serengeti National Park while in Tanzania:Although I love all animals, I'm normally a little afraid of horses because they are so big. I did see this mother and baby last month while I was visiting a park in Belize.Here is a lion with its pride in the Serengeti of Tanzania:Here is a penguin family I saw on an excursion in Punta Arenas, Chile on my way to Antarctica a few years ago. This Family is in their borough (home). One thing I learned about penguins on this trip is that they mate for life.Here is a mother and baby sea lion nursing that I saw it last summer at an aquarium in Curacao:I saw this litter of puppies in Alaska about two years ago when I went dog sledding on the Mendenhall glacier:Here is our cat peaches with her seven one week old kittens. We took peaches in when we were alerted by a rescue organization that she was lying next to a dumpster nursing her seven one week old kittens. We kept her in a bathroom away from our other cats until we were able to take her to a vet the next day when we learned that peaches was FIV positive (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) which meant she could not be around our cats as it can be spread to others. We had to wait until the kittens were older before we could test them. Only two of the seven turned out positive.

I was able to find a home for them with a friend who lived hundreds of miles away in Kansas City. We did purchase a new drug called T-cyte in hopes that treating the kittens while they were very young would make them turn F IV negative. Miraculously the drug worked and the kittens are very health healthy and are no longer F I V positive. Peaches is probably about seven years old now.

Peaches is kept healthy getting a shot every six months of T-cyte which costs about $60 dollars a month. Although she needs to be kept in an area of our home away from her other cats, we adopted another F I V positive cat named Piney who is also being treated with T-cyte and is also very healthy. You can learn more about T-cyte which has helped cats with FeLV as well here.

Here is a family of Sand Hill cranes that live in our neighborhood in Florida. The babies grow up very quickly but the mother and father stay with them until they are full grown. As you can see there is a photo of one of the parents feeding a baby. I apologize for this not being a good photo but I didn't want to get very close to them and upset the parents. The last photo of these birds was taken only 30 days after the first two so you see how fast they grow.

Although these iguanas I saw in Mexico are not furry and cute likes some of the other animals I've shown you, I thought it was a cute picture of what appears to be a mother iguana with her baby:Although this is not a great photo of a mother giraffe with two babies that I saw in the Serengeti national Park I thought I would share it:

Lastly I wanted to share some photos of our cat Princess. We found her in a junkyard about nine years ago when she was less than a year-old so she was basically a kitten herself. It was obvious she was very pregnant so we took her in. Princess said probably lived in that junkyard her whole life and was very feral and scared of humans. Once she had her three kittens she was a very good mother and very protective of her babies. We were very grateful to find good homes for all of her kittens when they were a few months old. Princess still lives with us and is a very sweet cat that causes no trouble and no one would ever guess that she spent the first part of her life in a junkyard and was feral as a young cat.

Do you have any special animal stories to share for Mother's Day or a soft spot in your heart for them like I do?

Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the internet. I would love to hear any comments or questions that you have. I hope that you have a wonderful Mother's Day however you decide to celebrate it.